


Breaking Falls: Lydia's Story

by EloquentSavage



Series: Breaking Falls [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Awesome Lydia, Evil Peter, Gen, Good Peter, Kanima Jackson Whittemore, Kanimas, Lydia-centric, Peter Hale Young, The Hale Family, Werewolf Jackson, Wolfsbane
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 11:07:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EloquentSavage/pseuds/EloquentSavage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lots and LOTS of meta all wrapped up in a creepy story. Explanation of Kanima stuff, Hale family, and how Jackson became the Kanima. Really just my take on everything that happened, the mythology and circumstance and how it is all connected. </p><p>***</p><p>The beautiful  purple flower had plagued her dreams, and terrified her as it appeared along side the hallucinations of Peter. It was weeks ago, but it still felt like a fresh wound. She felt powerful with all the knowledge of the deadly plant swimming around inside her head, but every time she thought of the purple flower, she thought of Peter. The power came with a price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Falls: Lydia's Story

**Author's Note:**

> This work is un beta'd, if you have any interest in being my guinea pig, please drop me a line. 
> 
> xkxdxs@gmail.com
> 
> This work is complimentary and will eventually tie into the original Breaking Falls series. It can be found here. 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/763344

A warm, buttery scent wafted toward her as she pulled the white ceramic dish from the warm oven. She surveyed her work, affirming all of the catalyzation had taken place, and the chemicals were inert. The texture was perfect, just like the website had described. 

“Oh, that’s been in there for hours! I didn’t know what to do with it, but it looked so nice! I figured you must have made it, so I left it alone.” Jackson’s mother, all teeth and fake smiles glided into the room, as if she hadn’t been sitting right outside the doorway to the sun room, waiting to pounce the second she heard movement. “What is all that Lydia? It smells heavenly!” 

Lydia smiled. A big perfect smile, sweet and cute. She crinkled her eyes and nose up endearingly, selling it. She was better at this than Mrs. Whittemore, and she knew it. “Oh, sorry! I hope it wasn’t any inconvenience!” 

Jackson’s mother placated her with wild abandon. Her ridiculous, over dramatic gestures were like nails on a chalkboard. She settled the pan carefully on the counter to cool. She inspected her creation further, looking for flaws. The homemade soap had very light lavender tint, the tiny specks were crushed pink rose petals. The rose petal flecks had cooked to a gorgeous dark purple color. 

She was pleased with her well planned kitchen chemistry. She considered doing it again, next time with a less toxic intention. Jackson’s mother pressed again, asking what it was, by inquiring how it was made. 

“It’s soap Mrs.Whittemore.” Lydia turned and deposited the oven mitts on their hooks. She smoothed them down, her movements pert and full of exuberance. “I made it out of the lavender powder you keep in the back of the pantry. Jackson said it was okay?” 

Lydia smiled sweetly, observing her reaction. She was thrilled to see Mrs. Whittemore’s gaping, surprised expression. She watched the older woman squirm, searching for a way to grill her about the details, without giving away the secret she thought she was protecting. 

“Oh, really?!” She leaned forward and inspected the substance, trying to glean clues from it’s appearance. “That stuff is pretty old, I hope you didn’t use a lot. I don’t know what happens to Lavender if it goes bad...” 

She didn't expect much from Mrs. Whittemore, but she couldn’t help but feel disappointed that the match of wits ended before it even started. She had hoped for more from a woman who had successfully kept secrets for 17 years, especially secrets like these. 

“Oh, no I don’t think there’s enough in there to matter. It’s only about a tablespoon in the whole batch.” She placated in return. She had wanted to experiment, and she had a long time to get it right, if everything went according to plan. 

She watched Mrs’ Whittemore’s face as she did the calculations in her head, was it too much? What would it do if it was on someones skin? Eventually she asked what the flecks were, how long did it cook, and what else was in it? Lydia answered each question with complete honesty. 

She was bored and so incredibly irritated, but she maintained her perfect and amiable exterior. In her mind she wandered over the familiar thoughts she used to ground herself when dealing with anyone infuriating, but especially Mrs. Whittemore, and her mildly hysterical personality. She couldn’t blame the woman for her hypervigilance, but she had so little grace under pressure, you would think after all these years she would have learned better coping skills. 

She listened to Mrs. Whittemore spout off some story about the “Lavender” in the pantry. Where it was from, and how she had made soap one time in college. The two things had nothing to do with each other, but Mrs. Whittemore just ran over herself, from one subject to the next. She talked like she didn't care what she said, as long as there was no silence. 

She let Mrs. Whittemore’s voice drift to the back of her mind. She smiled and nodded along on the outside, while her mind drifted to her favorite story. Letting her mind wander made her fabricated smiles easier to pull off. It was a part of the history of Augustus, the most powerful Emperor in all of Roman history. Her own name was derived from his wife’s name, Livia. 

Livia Drusilla was the first Empress of Rome, she also happened to be a dutiful and committed wife. When Lydia was younger she had been fascinated by Livia. She had risen to such magnificent power while maintaining herself well within the confines of perceived social norms. She acted exactly as was expected of her, as far as the public was concerned. She applauded and endorsed a traditional lifestyle. She was a role model for the feminine ideal at the time, and yet she didn’t cower behind her husband, hoping her life went as she expected it to. She bent the world around her will, quietly and with deadly precision. 

It thrilled her to think she could emulate the power, intellect, and grace of a woman like that. Recently the thrill began to feel more like fate. The story took on new meaning the day she started researching all she could about wolfsbane.

There were speculations, and rumors that Livia had used the deadly plant to kill off those who stood in the way of her climb to power. The rumors persisted throughout her lifetime. She used her considerable skills to elevate her children to leadership, and maintain her position as Rome’s most powerful matriarch. She remembered reading the passages online about her use of wolfsbane. She had been consumed by a powerful sensation of providence. 

Livia was formidable, intelligent; she was instrumental in maintaining one of the most important leaderships in the history of mankind, and her weapon of choice was wolfsbane. It was just too much to ignore. She remembered writing essays about Livia in elementary and middle school. She remembered hanging the photo of her bust on her corkboard. Livia had watched over her for years as she studied and worked. 

She brought the Alpha--Derek Hale-- to his knees, with one simple handful of the fine purple powder. It wasn’t even that hard. 

She had become obsessed with wolfsbane, what cultures used it, why, and how it was cultivated. There were a few key points everyone knew. The root was deadly, but he flower had a different effect. On humans the flower was still toxic, it caused numbness, weakness, lowered blood pressure. All of which it was medicinally used for back in the Roman Era, as well as throughout the world until the early 20th century. She was unsure of the range of it's effect on werewolves. There was no truly reliable information, so she decided to find out for herself. 

Occasionally she was unsure of her own motivations, but most of the time she was certain she was doing this for Jackson. 

She would do anything for Jackson. 

There were times when all she wanted was to walk away from this, pretend she had never discovered it, but she always pulled herself back. The beautiful purple flower had plagued her dreams when Peter had pursued her. The mere sight of it had terrified her as it appeared along side the hallucinations of Peter. It was weeks ago, but it still felt like a fresh wound. She felt powerful with all the knowledge of the deadly plant swimming around inside her head, like knowing would somehow protect her, but the association with Peter Hale was strong. 

There had been so much she hadn’t understood about her encounter with Peter Hale. So much unexplained emotion, the symbolism left untouched. The hallucinations were a story that she hadn't understood at the time. Her memory had served her well though, she wrote down every detail, everything she could remember. She knew answers lay in those details because everything she saw had been fabricated by Peter’s mind. She believed that In his arrogance he had unwittingly exposed himself. He had proven himself calculating and intelligent, and as hard as he had tried not to, he had underestimated her. 

His first mistake was showing himself to her when he was young. She had been powerfully moved by how much he looked like Jackson. When he lured her to the burnt husk of the Hale house, when he kissed her and held her, he had felt like Jackson. At the time she had rationalized that it was her grief over losing Jackson that caused the superimposition of her feelings. Later she realized that there was nothing in the hallucinations, that didn’t mean something profound. 

It wasn't reality with it's meaningless moments and constant turning. She had been walking around in the subconscious of someone deeply disturbed and tortured. His ego, and his position of power had made him bold in the scale and intricacies of his creation. He had assaulted her so thoroughly, gone so deeply into the recesses of her mind looking for ways to control her, that he had left the door to his partially open. Tiny things had spilled out, feelings, ideas she knew weren’t hers. There was nothing inside of her that he hadn't exposed. Her skin crawled thinking of him in her mind again, the hideousness of the violation felt like it would never fade. 

She had allowed her mind to travel to places better left alone. The bitterness and anger over what Peter had done to her reached a critical crescendo, her hands trembled. Her placid facade was close to collapsing. 

She dragged herself back from the edge with practiced effectiveness. She thought of Peter, not the burnt husk of a man so long tortured by life he had barely any humanity left, but the Peter that held her in his arms and kissed her tenderly. The Peter that wore ill fitting pants and didn’t lace his hiking boots up, because every chance he got he kicked them off and ran barefoot through the forest. The Peter who wore Mala beads. The thick handmade spheres--created from Bodhi wood-- were fragrant as they clicked against each other in his hands. There was some form of forgiveness--or maybe some understanding-- tied to those memories. 

Peter’s anchor had been peace, tranquility. His long hours of self imposed meditation had focused his mind, made him powerful, calm, and in complete control of himself. He moved with the ease of someone unaffected by the outside world. His inner calm manifested in a unobtrusive self confidence, and a profound self possession that was far beyond his years.

That Peter had opened his mind to her willingly, as if he was a separate entity hidden away somewhere in burnt Peter's mind. She felt sometimes like she couldn’t help but love young Peter, just a little. She knew he had kept the older, broken, more vicious man from destroying her when he had what he wanted. There were nights when she dreamed of him. She wanted to protect him, love him, and somehow keep him from becoming what he would become. She wanted to change him back somehow, for Jackson. 

She knew Peter, Derek, and Jackson were related in some way. All the genetic markers were there. Younger Peter’s striking resemblance to Jackson, taller, more lanky in youth, but eerily similar. Derek’s light haunted eyes, high cheekbones, and the dimpled chin. They all shared too many genetic similarities, she had cataloged each one and lined them all up, attempting to disprove her own wild theories. She had not been able to qualify a result that left them unattached to each other, with the exception of mere coincidence. She no longer believed in coincidence. 

Mrs. Whittemore's questions were satisfied. Unable to rope Lydia into entertaining her with conversation about the latest fashion, or her newest designer eyeliner, she left. Lydia relaxed against the door of the pantry and sighed in relief as she walked out of earshot. It had been torture, practically living with the woman for the past few weeks. She stretched her neck and let her head lull to the side as she looked out the window. 

The scene outside, the trees, and the empty driveway, looked exactly the same as that long horrific day Peter had walked her through gathering the supplies for her birthday. He had chosen to look young when he showed himself to her that day. He said it would be easier for her to associate the angelic face of his youth with her heroic efforts. His poetry with words made him sound like a character out of a bad novel. But, she could feel the difference between them, the separation was something that went deeper than the face he chose to show her. 

He had guided her here, to Jackson’s house. He had talked her into using the key without permission. She went inside, no one was home in the middle of the day. She made her way through the kitchen and opened the door of the pantry. She had flipped the switch, annoyed, not understanding how Mrs Whittemore's collection of boxed wines would help her with Peter’s plan. 

He took a couple of steps to the far end of the pantry and pushed aside an unused bag of flour. Rather, she did, imagining it was him. It revealed a tall, slim jar of purple powder. It was next to a similar jar of what looked like gunpowder. The purple substance was silky and fine between her fingers. He had warned her, asked her to wash her hands carefully. Leaving the powder on her skin could make her fingers numb. The warning was real, she would later know. The reality of that small, kind statement was so hard for her to reconcile with older Peter. 

She had searched the kitchen for plastic bags and filled one with a couple of handfuls from the jar. She closed the lid tightly and sifted the remainder, shaking it vigorously. The action added air between the particles, so no one would notice what she had taken. 

At the time she had been bewildered by the experience and confused as to why Jackson’s family would have such a huge jar of powdered wolfsbane flowers in their pantry. Peter had told her to not ask any more questions, it would all be clear when she was done. The clarity he promised her was a lie, a placation, to keep her from pressing him for answers. 

Afterward she had pushed it from her mind, buried it all in an attempt to recover from Peter’s assault on her psyche. It wasn’t until she helped save Jackson’s life, until the full extent of the deceit and manipulations around her were revealed, that she decided her course of action. She had to protect herself the only way she knew how, with knowledge. 

Since then she had deduced that Jackson had been born a werewolf, and his adopted parents knew it. She had translated the full text of the Kanima, all of the circumstances needed to manifest one. She knew his parents had been dosing him with wolfsbane and mountain ash, suppressing his wolf nature, probably his whole life. Sneaking little bits wolfsbane and mountain ash into his food, every day, for 16 years. When Jackson sensed Scott and Derek, when Derek gave Jackson the bite, when he had wanted to be a wolf so badly, Jackson's will to find his true nature created a paradox that could not resolve itself. Not without going through the full transformative cycle of the Kanima. 

She hated his parents for what they had done, but she was thankful at the same time. At first she had been outraged, she committed herself to telling Jackson what she had figured out. Within moments of her decision though, she reconsidered. He was unpredictable, emotionally volatile, and he now possessed incredible power. She knew that even though he was released from the curse, he was so much more powerful for having been the Kanima. She was fearful of what he might do with all that power, all of his rage still left unchecked, all of his secrets still left uncovered. She hesitated, deciding on caution and educating herself further before telling him what she knew.

Her relentless pursuit of knowledge led her to a Chinese herbalist. Someone she had to pay exorbitantly to even know existed, and even more to see him face to face. As she laid out the complexities of what she knew at their meeting, she saw on his face the fear that she was one of them. He had held out a jar, filled with a pungent, bitter form of wolfsbane. Something he called Northern Blue, it sounded like one of the names people gave Marijuana. He said he would tell her only if she agreed to hold the open jar in her hands. 

She had ripped the bottle from his hands and given him a curt smile. When she asked if he wanted her to lick it, he took it back, convinced she wasn't a werewolf. She smiled remembering her rudeness and rebellion. It was the little things really, that pleased her most.

She had replaced the mountain ash with half burned ash from her own fireplace. She had broken it to pieces with an axe and ran it carefully through the powerful Vitamix blender her father had purchased during his addiction to all things “Smoothie”. She perfected the color and texture of the original substance passably. 

She sifted in a tiny bit of detoxified wolfsbane into the ash powder, as the herbalist directed. He said it would catalyze the absorption of the other wolfsbane faster, leaving Jackson with a few hours everyday at full capacity. Then once dosed at dinner or lunch by his parents, he would become relaxed, sometimes drowsy. He would often sit on the couch or porch with her for hours, talking about feelings and ideas he never would have before. 

With the mountain ash out of the equation he wasn’t irritable, or physically depressed anymore. She hadn’t realized how much of his surly attitude had to do with how sick he felt all the time. She couldn’t imagine how it had been, feeling that sick his whole entire life, having no idea it wasn't how all people felt. 

What she was doing was working. She could see he felt better, more clear. It helped him process his new life, slowly. Over the past few weeks her goal had been to taper him off the wolfsbane completely, introducing the concept of Peter and the Hales as his potential family when she felt like he was ready. He was close, she knew it. She wasn't afraid to unearth the idea anymore. She knew Jackson would grasp it, and reject it. Only to mull over it thoughtfully every night until he felt like he had to take action. She had found, over her short but eventful years, that the truth could not be ignored for long. 

Once he did she would make sure he was clean of any wolfsbane. She would assure he was fully capable of defending himself against Peter and Derek, just in case it did not go well. She didn’t allow her mind to linger on what 'not going well' would mean to her, or Jackson. 

All she really knew was that he couldn’t live buried underneath all these secrets anymore. He had to be free to fully realize his potential, and she was the one who could best lead him there.


End file.
